NFL DFS Pace of Play & Stacks for Week 17 (Fantasy Football)
Pace of play gives the prospective DFS player an opportunity to consider not just Vegas totals but how the game will be played out in a given week. Game flow is a tricky rabbit hole to jump down when you consider the endless scenarios that can play out in a game. Stacking up-tempo offenses who can keep the ball moving is crucial to gaining an edge in DFS. Even slight differentiations of team trends matter in a world where volume is king.
Each week I’ll highlight my favorite game environments factoring in their pace metrics, stacks to consider for tournaments, and five dart throws to shoot for the moon with.
Game Pace Score
A reminder of a simple metric I introduced a couple of years ago: Game Pace Score(GPS). I liked the acronym to also give you a “compass” of how the game total and neutral pace statistics come together. These scores are ranked 1-5 with five indicating the pace of the play is everything you want for a DFS bonanza.
- 5– A back-and-forth shootout is looming. Both teams are pace-up and both sport team implied totals of 25+.
- 4– An up-tempo spot worth game stacking in DFS in multiple ways. Consider multiple game scripts in play.
- 3– This game could go either way. Often, these are onslaught spots for teams with healthy implied totals or games that hit the under because two middling offenses collide.
- 2– Strong indications of a game you want to stay away from. Usually, the pace is dragged down by one team with an absurdly slow neutral pace or a team with a team implied total so low it drags the entire game environment through the mud.
- 1– This has all the makings of a plodder. These games have totals UNDER 40 which gives you zero confidence in DFS.
For Week 17, I’ve sorted by all 32 team implied totals while focusing on pass rate over expectation (PROE) and EPA metrics and factor that for a final GPS score. As I mentioned at the beginning of the season, no-huddle rate had one of the strongest correlation coefficients year-to-year.
If you’d like another visual format of Expected Points per Play, shout out to nflelo and one of my favorite websites for analytics & EPA tiers.
Miami Dolphins @ Baltimore Ravens
It doesn’t get much bigger than this. The winner sits in the driver’s seat in the AFC as the No. 1 seed with that coveted bye week in their grasp. We just saw both teams come away with impressive victories over NFC opponents with Miami outlasting the Cowboys with a last-second FG and the Ravens throttling the 49ers on Christmas evening. Both teams are as efficient as they get running the ball which factors into some of their pace of play metrics. A 4/5 might disappoint some but when you factor in that Miami (27th) and Baltimore (29th) both rank in the bottom-6 in seconds per play, there are routes where this game goes south. The 47-total is appropriate but let’s focus first on the Baltimore side. OC Todd Monken designed a beautiful game plan versus San Francisco limiting the pass rush while getting the ball to Zay Flowers in space. A Lamar Jackson skinny stack is quite affordable this week as DraftKings priced Ravens pass-catchers before their Monday night win. Miami runs a ton of Cover 6 (27%- #1 in NFL) giving their CBs zones to work with rather than individual WR/CB matchups. Isaiah Likely is a great stacking partner as teams have heavily targeted Miami in the middle of the field recently including 11 targets to Cowboys TEs last week.
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